


Feathers and Steel

by Toshi_Nama



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Cunnilingus, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Healing, Healing Sex, Honesty, Masturbation, Past Sexual Assault, Sexual Fantasy, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26257573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshi_Nama/pseuds/Toshi_Nama
Summary: Don't look for truth from a Crow.Don't look for love from a Crow.DON'T look for a future with a Crow.…unless you are a woman that is willing to challenge anyone for what you believe in. Then, maybe, he will believe, too.Thank you Iodhadh for the beta!
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Shianni
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	Feathers and Steel

He had no reason to return to the Alienage. This, he knew. He was not from this place – not even from an Alienage in Antiva. He had nothing in common with any of those here beyond the tips of his ears and the structure of his bones.

The woman with haphazardly braided hair smiled at him. “Hello! Welcome back! I didn’t have the chance to thank you properly when you were...I mean…”

“When I was killing the slavers?” Zevran chuckled. “It is something I am quite good at, and I have my own reasons to dislike the practice.”

She was warmer now than she had been when he’d been with the others – ah. Zevran nodded. He had been with the _humans._ He had heard of the riots and the purge; to then find out that the ‘regent’ was involved in the slave trade would destroy their trust even further. He looked past the redhead despite her admirable temper and equally admirable form to reassess his expectations.

He knew slums. No child of Antiva was blind to them. He had seen slums in Denerim as well, and had recruited from them for his attempt to kill the Wardens, but he had not come to the sealed-off Alienage then. There were no wells, only pools of stagnant water where the ground refused to let more seep in. The houses seemed to share in the general malaise, drooping and sagging against each other in their own weariness and hopelessness, though they clung and climbed along the palisade high enough to block out the morning sun. For all the rot and sickness he could smell, Zevran’s nose picked up no trace of sewage. The filth here was not the doing of those forced to reside in this place, but a symptom of where they were forced to live.

A hand waved in front of his face, and he snapped back, one hand on his dagger.

“I _said,_ did you want to see Valendrian? He’s been sleeping the last three days, but he’s better now and had wanted to say thank you himself. As Hahren, he really _should_ be the one greeting you, not me, but I’ve gotten used to doing things for him.”

“Accompanying you would be my pleasure,” he smiled. Her face froze for a moment, and he wondered if he’d misstepped. “Perhaps you can explain how you were able to find and practice with the bow? The calluses are unmistakable, and that ingenuity is to be admired.”

The woman’s face loosened again and she gestured before walking briskly to the right. Zevran followed as she wove a story about smugglers, a theft, and managed ‘my cous’ before cutting herself off.

“We’re here,” she said, her voice more formal. “Valendrian, one of our rescuers is here!”

“Then why haven’t you brought him in, Shianni?” The worn voice had more energy than it did the day he’d first heard it. “Courtesy is part –”

“...of a Hahren’s duty, yes. Well, I wasn’t sure if you’d needed to nap again, so I called out first. Anyway, he’s here now.”

The old man – hahren – looked Zevran up and down. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a warrior elf. Welcome, and please accept my thanks for your actions. I have nothing to give you, but...speak to Cyrion and he may have something. He’d saved it for another purpose, but Soris told me that no longer matters.”

Death hung between them, even as Shianni left, slamming the door behind her.

Zevran looked over, then back to the hahren as he sighed. “I take it something rather more personal is involved?”

“Yes,” came the heavy reply. “Soris said you killed the Kendells boy. Thank you. He had disturbed a wedding almost a year ago, claiming the women for –”

“Braska! Say no more. Then Shianni knew some of them?”

Valendrian tightened his lips. “Shianni and her cousin were among them.”

_‘My cous…’_

Zevran spat. “I regret that I could only kill him the once.” For all the darkness of his own life, the Crows had _standards._ To know that had happened to the strong, beautiful woman who had risked so much for her people made him burn, and not with lust. Her anger, her uneasiness with his interest – it all made sense. “I swear my intentions will be honorable.”

The old man chuckled. “It’s been a year since, and someone who is proven himself a hero to us would not abuse a woman’s trust.”

Rinna’s cries were seared into his memory, but Zevran shook them away. “No, I will not.” _This time._ He remembered the old spirit’s comments at the Temple, the regrets that had almost drowned him. That life was done, he swore to himself. Here, he was no Crow, but another elf.

**

Zevran found himself spending more time in the Alienage with its rude stench than the Arl’s polished, pampered estate. Gilded cages were far too familiar, he told himself. He went in the mornings to help Shianni and the others rebuild what they could, even if his only assistance was holding a board while those who knew their craft did the actual work. He traded stories: she told him the history and tales of Denerim’s Alienage, while he shared stories of his Antiva.

Was it still his when he dared not return? Zevran turned away from that thought, even as Inigo’s words spread their own dark pinions in his heart. At least no Crow would hunt the spoiled, extravagant Zevran within the squalid confines of the Alienage.

He left daggers during the day. Some nights, he returned with bows and arrows, quivers, and quiet directions for her and her friends. He, who had grown up with a blade in his hand, could not bear to see these people, steel in their spines, be forbidden any means of protection. It was self-interest, he tried to tell himself every time Valendrian smiled.

The first time Shianni invited him to her bed, he refused.

“Why not? Are you…”

Nervousness that did not fit the woman he’d grown to admire twined through her voice. He shook his head quickly. “No, not at all! You are a beautiful woman, and a desirable one.”

She said the words he expected. “Then why not?”

“Why not indeed. I...this is complicated.” It was more than complicated and he rubbed his hands on the legs of his breeches. Zevran, the seducer, at a loss for words because he had turned down an invitation to a beautiful woman’s bed? It made sense, he had never prepared for this. “It would be easy to lay with you out of desire,” he admitted. “But you deserve more.”

Her eyes flared as she turned, but not before he saw how damp they were.

“Shianni! Wait –”

Shianni did not wait.

“Braska.” How could he have failed so badly? Words were even more his weapon than his daggers! With the right words, a dagger was only a formality, and he had trained himself well.

Zevran paced until he found himself before the door that belonged to Cyrion, an – uncle of Shianni’s? Yes, perhaps that was the best solution. He could throw himself on the man’s mercy or beg to be punished for his failing to transgress. Before his common sense could interrupt, he knocked on the door.

Another old man answered, his hair braided back more neatly than Shianni’s. He had the same wide mouth as his niece. “Yes? Zevran, isn’t it? Thank you for rescuing Soris.”

“Ah, Soris is not why I am here.” Soris was as attractive as Shianni, but he had eyes for someone else, and lacked the steel Zevran admired in the redhead so much. “I may have...well. I need to apologize.”

Cyrion’s eyes hardened. “What did you do to Shianni? If you pressed yourself on her, even your aid to the Alienage will not make you welcome here.”

“That is my conundrum. I did not. In fact, I did the opposite.”

“You…”

“Yes,” Zevran sighed. “I was invited and said no. It was not a rejection of her, but that is how it was taken. And now I am at a loss.”

The other man blinked. Then blinked again, closing his mouth on words that clearly did not exist. “You are apologizing for _not_ bedding my niece?”

“I…” Well, _yes,_ but when the man put it like that…

Said man laughed. “You’re not willing to use her. Do you want to?”

Zevran stared. Certainly, elves in Alienages were different, and Ferelden was so bizarrely direct that he still had not adapted, but this? Surely this was some cruel joke for having the unfortunate luck to find strong, beautiful people...attractive. More than just attractive. But this? “Shianni deserves someone who can stay here,” he finally stated. “I...am a Crow. Or was a Crow, but quitting is not so easy, sadly. And even if I _can,_ I am Antivan, and she is – should be – this place is as much a part of her as my daggers are of me.”

Now the old man’s eyes softened, the laugh lines at his eyes not quite vanishing, but fading. “She knows nothing is forever, Zevran – we all do.”

**

After he wiped his daggers on Taliesen’s shirt, Zevran had no desire to be in the pampered luxury of the Arl’s estate. Somehow he left the Warden and the others with a jaunty smile, despite his heart breaking, and found himself in cheerful squalor instead. Yes, his lover had found an alley through which to attack him – but thank Andraste, Taliesen had not considered that he would actually _want_ to spend time here, or to be on his own after what had happened.

The Warden had said he could do as he wished, but impulsive gratitude had caused Zevran to promise to stay at his side. Ah, it had been a pity the Warden had not been interested, but these things happened – and after seeing how he looked at the Queen, Zevran understood. Some men had more preferences than ‘beautiful and dangerous,’ and there was a history between them, that much was clear to anyone with eyes to see.

This time, truly without an anchor to his homeland, when Shianni took him into her house he didn’t protest. Not then, not when she poured them both something to drink, not when she rested a shoulder against his in clear invitation to touch. Starved, he reached for what she offered.

“Who was he?”

Zevran swallowed. Of course she would know. What happened in this city that an elf did not hear? “A lover, once. But after Rinna...it had been the three of us, bold and deadly. The Talons used us against each other as a lesson that nothing could last. She was inconvenient, so for his own power, the Talon set us up to kill her. I...could not stay after that. It took me two years to find a way out.”

“Two years?”

“Hah, you think me a fool?” He scoffed even as he wrapped an arm around her and her head landed against his neck. “Perhaps you are right. Yet I had been a Crow since the age of seven. I knew no other way to be. I still do not. I know how to seduce, I know how to lie, I know how to kill.”

Shianni brushed her nose against his jaw before kissing it. “You are learning how to build, though. You aren’t what they made you.”

“You think so, hm?”

She was the one to kiss him, but he was the one who caressed her cheek and hair before letting his fingers trail down her neck. By the time she broke away, she’d stolen his breath with her.

“Are you going to say no again?”

Zevran chuckled. “No, lovely lady, I will not. Not unless you wish me to.”

She did not, leaning forward for another kiss – and then another – before standing and pulling on his hand. He followed, willingly, up the ladder claiming to be a staircase, and to a curtain-closed room with a dresser and narrow bed that smelled of flowers and wine. She turned and kissed him again.

“I want this,” Shianni whispered.

He believed her, this woman with steel in her spine and more energy than he’d seen outside of dogs and small children. She kissed with passion, and this was the second time she had invited him, unprompted. Yet as her vest slid to the floor and he nibbled along her collarbones, he felt her tense.

“I want this,” she insisted again when he paused.

Zevran kissed her more, seducing her past the fear she no longer wanted. His tutors would be horrified at what he was using his knowledge to do – where was the contract? – and he did not care. Skills learned in the service of death, he used for her pleasure. She shivered from something that was not the chill air as she lay before him, and he held her eyes as his fingers dipped along curves and valleys, drawing lines of arousal rather than pain. He kissed her lips again, then her neck, then her breast, lavishing attention until she moaned before he kissed the curve of each rib, then her belly.

Had Shianni known the touch of a lover before? Uncertain, Zevran chose his own path, and tasted between her thighs. Strong fingers clenched in his hair, encouraging him. Each stroke of his tongue, each nibble, each buck of Shianni’s hips felt...clean. Pure. Perhaps it was nothing but a vivid imagination, but he bathed in the sensation, encouraging her to come again and again. Before he moved at last from where he knelt at her knees, he wiped his face with his sleeve, then kissed his way back up.

“You didn’t…”

“No, I didn’t,” he confirmed. “I did not need to. This was...something more. For both of us.”

Shianni laughed and caressed his cheek and ear, tugging at the little loop in the lobe. “You’re just fishing for another invitation.”

It would be so easy to agree. Zevran shook his head. “No. I would not turn it down, but no. It is as I said. An old Crow can learn new things, hm?”

By the time he made it back to the Arl’s estate, the Landsmeet had been concluded, and the Warden was promised a throne. There was wine and feasting, silks and hot glances from the Arl’s other gusts. Any other time, he would have cheerfully jumped into any number of beds – or several. The nights were long in Ferelden’s winter, even if he hated the way the slush crept into the collar of his jacket. Yet he chose to remain quietly oblivious.

“Oh, Zev!” The Warden’s boisterous voice shook him out of something far too much like reflection.

He took the opportunity. “Yes, oh Warden?”

“We leave tomorrow morning for Redcliffe. Anora – blast, the Queen – will come with, since she wants to talk to Eamon’s troops directly.” _And,_ Zevran added in his thoughts, _did not wish to be parted from a man who was clearly already a lover – not after almost losing him so many times._ “Don’t drink too much!”

“I will be ready, fear not.”

This was what he had promised, no? So he ought not object to its coming. Still, he retired early, pleading weariness.

There was no weariness. His mind drifted to the red-headed beauty he’d spent two hours with that afternoon, and his hand drifted inside his breeches. The tension memory had forced on her had eased as he had done everything _but_ what that scum had. She wanted him back – and he wanted _her._ Her smile, and the way she did not chuckle or giggle, but laughed with the same passion as she shouted or worked to rebuild a home destroyed in the purge. _That_ woman held nothing back.

He could go to her. Tonight. Now. Shianni would welcome him, he was certain of it – and her uncle might as well. Instead, he continued to stroke himself, letting the memory of her squeals and moans, the taste of her, her lean-muscled legs and firm breasts, take the place of such things actually against his skin.

He could not go to her – would not seduce her again, now. Not when Shianni of the steel spine and committed heart could find someone other than a man who was trying to kill himself. Again. But he could let his mind conjure the fantasy, and how his body wanted it.

**

Fear dove ahead of weariness as Zevran rode his horse faster and faster. Redcliffe had been a diversion – one destined to take the army away from the very target the Archdemon wanted. Denerim.

Even the blasted snow could not disturb him, not when it served as a chilly background to his fears of blood and fire. He had never expected the Archdemon to come _here,_ and he cursed his disregard of history. Had not Antiva lost its own capital to another Archdemon? The thoughts spun in their own flurry as he tore through the market with only one goal in mind. Even the Warden struggled to keep up with him.

“Zevran! Where are you going?!”

Ah. He should inform the man who held his loyalty. “The Alienage,” he snapped.

The unprotected Alienage, where Shia...where _people_ were trapped like rats.

They burst through the gate into said quarter only to see a dozen archers in a line across the place, firing at the clarion commands of a red-haired goddess of steel. “Hold them! Go for the head, Lestrial! Everyone else, body shots! The children are almost safe!”

More smoke, and he dove into it and used the confusion to come up behind a hurlock waving its jagged sword and howling to cut a new mouth beneath the first. Tainted blood splashed in the mud, but he knew how to dodge its hot flow. Then he found himself in another’s arms, even as the Warden was calling out his own commands.

The goddess was not giving orders now, for Shianni’s mouth was far too occupied with his own, hot and fierce. He didn’t care that her bow dug into his back. Relief made him weak – or was it passion? No matter which, she had stolen his breath again by the time she released him, wiping tears and mud from her face.

He looked at the quiver over her shoulder rather than meet her eyes. He was not ready to face what his heart shouted. Then Zevran blinked.

“Your arrows are fletched in black? I told you to use goose feathers. They fly straight and true.”

Shianni shook her head and laughed. “Geese are hard for an elf to find, remember? Besides, in my experience, Crows fly true as well.”

Desire had no place on the killing fields, nor did the warm, possessive urge that rose in him along with his cock. Yet the feelings did not care, any more than the laughter he could not suppress.

“You look to assassins trained in lies to find honesty?”

“No,” she replied, somber. One strong, callused finger pressed against his lips. “To you. Later. We have darkspawn to fight!”

Zevran laughed wildly and kissed her palm, not caring that it tasted of sweat, dirt, and the copper of blood. He had tasted them all before. “On your command, my goddess.”

Later _would_ come, he promised himself. This time, there would be a later.


End file.
